ever since lightning
first hit sand, and beachcombers
picked up shards
of this petrified light,
humanity strove to
imitate nature,
the up close and the far-away,
as we always do.
ever wanting to fly like birds,
to camouflage ourselves,
to swim like fish,
to see into stars.
when sand, lime and soda
mixed with furnace fire,
there arose a globule of glass
as viscous as white hot honey,
blooming into
a bright wobbly orange,
rolling like taffy
at the end of a blowpipe
the double-lunged
giving it long air,
exhale after creative exhale into
a liquid, transparent bubble.
from hot crucible and glory hole,
the vase and goblet,
art glass and light bulb,
the windows of the world,
microscope and telescope,
our observant, mimicking eyes
peering inward and upward
from this bubble of earth.
